


The Same Eyes

by thanku_bess



Category: Madam Secretary
Genre: Alcohol, College, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29323200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thanku_bess/pseuds/thanku_bess
Summary: Elizabeth suspects her granddaughter, Madeline McCord Petrov, is avoiding her while she is away at college. She decides to pay her a visit and is concerned about what she finds out. The visit is not what either of them expect, but it is exactly what they need.
Relationships: Elizabeth McCord & Original Character(s), Elizabeth McCord/Henry McCord, Stevie McCord/Dmitri Petrov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	The Same Eyes

Madeline McCord Petrov was sitting at a table by the window of the campus center, staring at an empty word document on her computer. She picked up her uneaten bagel, then set it down. Someone tapped her shoulder, and she turned around to see her Nana. Maddy blinked.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Elizabeth said neutrally. “So I decided to come for a visit.”

“Does my mom know you’re here?” Maddy asked, looking back at her computer screen.

“No,” Elizabeth replied, taking a sip of the coffee from the campus center. “But she also doesn’t think you’ve been avoiding me. She says you’ve just been very busy.”

Madeline bit her lip. She had been avoiding Nana. “Well I have been very busy.” She gestured to her laptop and the textbooks sticking out of her book bag.

“Not too busy for some fresh air with your favorite Nana though.” Elizabeth squeezed her shoulders. “Come on kid, let’s just take a walk.”

Maddy sighed, knowing if she protested that Nana might grow suspicious. She zipped her laptop into her bag. 

Nana picked up the bagel. “Are you going to eat this?” 

Maddy shook her head and Elizabeth tossed it in the trash receptacle. Maddy put on her coat and followed Nana out of the campus center in the direction of a quiet walkway. 

“So.” 

“So…”

“What’s going on, Maddy?” Elizabeth asked, concern evident in her voice.

Maddy fiddled with the straps of her backpack. “I told you, I’ve just been really busy with school.”

Elizabeth frowned. “I just don’t buy it.”

For the millionth time in her life, Maddy resented her Nana’s tenure in the CIA. “Come on, Nana. You had three kids in college. You were a professor! You know what it’s like.” 

Elizabeth took a breath. “Okay. I’ll drop it. For now.”

Maddy breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Do you want me to take you grocery shopping? Do you need anything?” Nana asked, switching gears into overprotective grandmother mode.

“I appreciate it, but I’m all set.”

“Well, can I at least put a few things in your dorm?” She patted her tote bag. “Just some snacks and this stress relieving lavender lotion I swear by...and maybe a few other knick knacks for my college girl.”

Maddy froze. Her Nana could not see the inside of her room. “That’s so lovely. But my dorm is in the other direction up a hill. I can always grab the stuff from you before you go.”

Elizabeth had a gut feeling that whatever was in that dorm room might clue her in on what had been going on in Maddy’s life. “Nonsense. Let’s reroute.”

When they got to her building, Maddy swiped her keycard. Nervously, she led her Nana down the hallway and unlocked her door. The two of them took in the sight of her room: unmade bed, unwashed sheets, clothes in heaps on the floor, a desk littered with post it notes and half eaten granola bars. None of this would have phased Elizabeth if Maddy had been like her uncle, whose tendency toward messy rooms had followed him into his college days and beyond. But Maddy had a penchant for color-coding and had always prided herself on being organized. She was the only member of the family that actually appreciated the wet-dry vac. So Elizabeth experienced shock followed by concern, as Maddy led her into the space. When she thought her grandmother wasn’t looking, Maddy nudged her trashcan, in which there was an empty bottle of cheap vodka, out of her line of vision. 

“Sorry it’s a bit of a mess,” she said sheepishly. “I’m so busy it’s hard to find time to tidy up.”

Elizabeth sat gingerly on the bed, placing the tote bag at her feet. “Maddy, this is really unlike you. Please talk to me. About college, or your room, or who bought you that vodka...”

Maddy turned her back to Elizabeth and began throwing clothes into her hamper. “Don’t patronize me,” she replied, her voice low.

“Hey, look at me,” Elizabeth said softly.

Maddy turned around to face her Nana, whose expression of concern tugged at Maddy’s heartstrings. “I’m not patronizing you. I’m just trying to be here.”

“I appreciate the snacks but you should just go. It’s a mess and I should really clean up, and then do more work—“

Elizabeth gave her a small smile. “I’m not going to leave until we talk. And I'll help you clean. You know I love that.”

“Holy shit, you are relentless!” Maddy exclaimed. Elizabeth looked at her, stunned. “Now I see how you must have been at State. It’s like you’re incapable of letting people get their own way. You just keep pushing! You don’t listen!”

“Are you done?” Elizabeth asked, trying to maintain a neutral expression.

Maddy sat at her desk chair and curled her knees up to her chest. She nodded. This was the first time in nineteen years she had ever shown her Nana even an ounce of disrespect. She had no idea what to say next, so she bit her lip to keep from crying.

Elizabeth wasn’t angry at Maddy’s outburst. If anything, it was more concerning than the state of her dorm room. The two sat in silence for a few moments. “I’ll go if that is really the way you feel,” she said finally.

Maddy shook her head. “No. You’re right. I have been avoiding you.” Tears dripped down her face. “I didn’t want to be reminded that my Nana is this amazing super-accomplished badass who raised my super-accomplished mom, and I’m just a disappointment.” Maddy choked back a sob. “And I’m just disgusting, like I didn’t get any of our genetics, or anyone’s talents, and I don’t even know how I got into this school.”

Elizabeth patted the spot on the bed next to her, and Maddy got up from the chair to sit beside her. She wrapped her arms around her grandbaby and stroked her curly brown hair. “Oh, my love,” she repeated, as Maddy’s sobs quieted. 

“Do your parents know you’re feeling this way?” Elizabeth asked finally.

Maddy shook her head. “I don’t want to burden them with something stupid.”

Elizabeth cupped Maddy’s chin in her hands and wiped away her tears with her thumb. 

“Maddy. This is not stupid You’re going through so much.” She continued, “I want you to come home with me. Stay with Pop and me at least for a couples of days.”

“Nana, I have to stay here and do work.”

“Maddy,” Elizabeth said gently, “Are you even able to complete assignments? It didn’t look that way when I saw you earlier this morning.”

Maddy took a breath. “No. I spend hours working on the same papers and I just can’t finish them...Are you disappointed in me?”

“Madeline McCord Petrov, I could never be disappointed in you. I am the opposite of disappointed. You have always been my sunshine.”

“But what about Pop? He’s so smart and he’ll just realize how dumb and incompetent I am.”

Elizabeth shook her head. "Pop deeply understands that sometimes we aren’t able to be our best selves, and we need to turn to the people we love for help. His grand babies—even though none of you are babies anymore—are his whole world.”

Maddy rested her head on her Nana’s shoulder. “I’m just tired, Nana. It’s embarrassing that my grandmother has to pick me up from school like I’m a baby.”

“You have always been your own harshest critic. You don’t see yourself the way we all see you—so smart, and hardworking, and kind, and beautiful. And there is nothing embarrassing about family showing up for one another.”

Maddy sighed. "Okay, I’ll go with you.” 

Elizabeth stepped outside to call Henry with an update. She told Maddy to pack her books and clothes, and not to worry about what was clean. She assured her she would do as much laundry as she wanted at the house.

“I’m so glad you went down there,” Henry said after hearing Elizabeth’s account of her visit.

“Me too, Henry. I’m worried about her.”

“I am, too. This doesn’t sound like her at all.”

“I know, right? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

“Just get home safe, ok? I’ll go to the store and get that weird tofu she eats.”

Elizabeth grimaced. Her children and grandchildren ate truly bizarre plant-based foods when all she ever wanted was to load them up with ice cream and pizza. “Henry, what are we going to do about Stevie and Dmitri?”

“I’ll call Stevie and tell her that you went to visit Maddy and she seemed stressed out and agreed to stay with us for a few days. And that we can all talk about it in depth as a family when the two of you get home.”

“She’s going to freak out.”

“I’ll handle it, babe. You did the right thing.”

Elizabeth took a deep, grateful breath. Henry always knew the answer to her unasked questions. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Elizabeth and Maddy were mostly silent on the drive from Baltimore to the horse farm outside Charlottesville. About forty five minutes in, Maddy fell asleep, resting her head on the window. 

Elizabeth's phone rang and it was Henry. "How's our girl?" his soft voice picked up the Bluetooth. 

"Passed out. Brings me back to all those Halloweens," she replied wistfully. 

Henry chuckled. “Those post trick or treating sugar crashes were brutal. I’ll see you both soon.”

As Elizabeth drove, she remembered what it was like to become a grandmother. Stevie had Maddy during Elizabeth’s second term as POTUS and then had Ben right at the end of her presidency. Ali and Zach, and Jason and Hannah, had soon followed suit, giving Henry and her the perfect brood of six grandbabies. 

Maddy stirred. “Are we almost there?” She asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“We are. Pop is making dinner.” 

Maddy twisted the ring on her finger. “Hey Nana? How did you even know something was wrong?”

“I wasn’t sure until I saw you in the student center. When you turned to look at me I saw it in your eyes.”

“My eyes?” 

“Yes.”

“Is it because you were CIA that you can get that kind of information from just looking into someone’s eyes?”

Elizabeth laughed. “Well, that was part of the training, yes. But not in this case.”

“So you just have, like, grandmother’s intuition or something?” 

Elizabeth stopped at a red light. She reached over and pulled down the sun visor in the passenger seat. “Look in the mirror,” she instructed Maddy.

“Why?”

“Because I want you to see something.”

Maddy gazed uncomfortably at the tiny rectangle of her reflection. “Ok. I’m looking.”

“You have my eyes, Madeline.”

“Nana, I get that they’re the same color. It’s not that deep.”

“It’s not just the color. Ever since you were a little girl, I recognized the way you experienced the world. For a long time, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Until one day, when you were maybe ten years old, I was brushing my teeth and happened to catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror. It just hit me! I saw so much of you in that moment. I called over your Pop and said ‘Henry, this might sound strange, but do you think Maddy and I have the same eyes?’ And he said, ‘I’ve always seen it, I thought you knew'”

Something clicked for Maddy in that moment. There were layers to her Nana that she didn’t understand, but she knew her Nana had been in pain like this before. Of course her mom had told her stories, but she had always been left to read between the lines. She was beginning to piece together what was there. If her Nana could recognize emptiness in her eyes, then she had to understand the feeling of emptiness intimately. 

Elizabeth sensed Maddy was still absorbing her comparison. She knew that revealing the extent of this similarity was a risk. Maddy was a smart young woman—she would surely understand the implications, and she might want to know more about why Elizabeth found her expressions so familiar. 

“Thanks, Nana. For all of this.” Maddy said finally. 

"You're going to get through this, you know. You're not in it alone."

Of all of the lessons Elizabeth had learned over the decades, this was the one that grounded her. The one on which she based her initial candidacy announcement all those years ago. Life was, at times, achingly beautiful and gut wrenchingly difficult—sometimes both at once. And through it all, she had never been alone. Not when she and Will had to confront the unimaginable, not through the grueling work in the Company, not during her tenure at State, or her time in the Oval Office. She had the love of her life and a family that had continued to expand as her North Star. It was time to remind Maddy that at the core of the McCord support system was unconditional love. 

Maddy would internalize her grandmother’s wisdom in due time. She would heal, slowly but surely, as McCord women were known to do. There were the hard days, when brushing her teeth felt like a herculean task. And then there were the hopeful days, and there had been a lot more of those lately. One Wednesday night in group therapy, the counselor had asked each person to share their favorite thing about themselves. When it was Maddy’s turn, she shared without hesitation, “My eyes."


End file.
